AngryAngel

I am sorry to tell you that they did research on this some years ago but still recently. Their conclusions were that no matter what approach they tried, even getting 4 people involved in lifting and moving patients, they were still overly stretched and prone to eventual injury. I always tried to watch my back and never really hurt myself openly. Yet now I have a Spondlythisis of my L5-S1 and can hardly stand for more then 10 minutes without truly bad pain. They uncovered the skeletons of the men who built the pyramids and researchers could tell from the bones who were the supervisors, and who were the workers 3,000 years ago. Heavy lifting leaves its mark. So some areas of nursing might not require much heavy lifting, whereas other areas will require a lot. Look into it before you commit.

Trust me I have been doing this for 43 years. Experience cannot be bought. You must live through it. I am an ENFP according to the MBTI. The perfect nurse is supposed to be an ENSP. where she does things by rote, and never is upset with anything that is repetitive.I hate repetitive tasks. So I drifted into the ED. It was hectic but within four hours they were discharged, admitted, or dead. After 4 hours the ICU was where they needed to go. I left the ED when we were unable to move patients that fast any more. So realize the wonder of Nursing is that there are hundreds of places you can serve. This position may not be the one for you. But never never get discouraged because you made an error. Years ago we buried our errors and they were not as investigated as they are now. That is a good thing as it does help enforce a more cognizant understanding of how errors are made. Yet they are made. One article about a generation ago admitted that every day in American hospitals over 250 people died due to med errors. That was equivalent to a 747 filled with people crashing every two days, killing all on board. That did prompt some changes, but again it is not something you need to be fried over. If you do not begin to see that we are people and not robots, that we can and will make mistakes. You will rest better at night. Errors are errors and should never be made, yet there are more then enough lawyers out there to keep things in check. Once I mixed up a IV bag with a liter of fluid and 40 meq of KCL in it. We did not have Iv pumps back then and I set the flow and when I came back to check on the patient his bag was empty. I too nearly fainted. According to everything I knew his heart would stop and he would be dead any minute. It didn't happen, and we all knew we needed IV pumps, but they did not become the norm for another 20 years. So check around their are many other things you can do in nursing, but you will never make this mistake again. Move on, the river has a current and you cannot fight it. Go with the flow. If this area is not to your liking and your skill set look elsewhere. But if it is just what you want then understand this is only one of many things you will do wrong in the future. You must accept you are human and not perfect. Do the best you can always, but your experience will one day be vast because of all the mistakes you will make. I hear the Chinese definition of a Master is one who started before you did. It makes a lot of sense. P.S. look into that MBTI on google and see where your personality brings you (16personalities.com). It was a revelation for me...

When I entered Nursing as a student in 1970 there were seven men in my class. Everybody thought it was the beginning of "Men Entering Nursing." which was going to be the name of the National Society for Male Nurses. Of course it never happened, but the nursing cap was a real controversy. We had a new Nursing Director come into the hospital and as a male he wanted to have all the RN's wear nursing caps. We were at the University of Florida and their cap was an engineering disaster similar to what the Hindenburg was to Zeppelins. With my short hair getting the thing on was a trip, keeping it on was the real trick. We put it on as males to protest the absurdity of nursing caps needed to identify nurses. The original nursing caps were worn to keep the lice from dropping onto the patients. Before Florence Nightingale in 1854, nurses were frequently prostitutes because they had already seen naked men. The cap was a very succinct identification for the nurse for many years, and far be it from me to be maligned. Yet in today's world of Nursing it is an older sign of the people who give their professional lives in service to others. Respect it? Yes! Wear it. Hell No!

I was a nurse for over 27 years before I graduated with an MSN NP degree. I was 55 years old. My last 16 years have definitely been the best of a great career. I wouldn't have done it any other way. What I do now is teach, and take care of indigent people, better then I could have ever done just as a nurse. Now one thing that is not expressed is that 20% of NP who graduate never practice as NP's. Why is that? Because the field is constantly trying to push "Nursing Practice" as the way for the NP to look at the practice she will eventually preform. I had to study Rosemary Porifice's "Theory of Human Becoming." Ever heard of it? I doubt it as it is the biggest collection of hogwash nursing has ever come up with. That was truly wasted time. Yet big wig nursing educators want the MSN and now the DNP to have all this Nursing research background. So when you get out and go to work with a doctor he wants none of it. Medicine in America is a business. It is a grueling, grinding business that is supposed to make its fully licensed professionals big bucks. The doctors in Russia are 90% women. In England the doctors are comfortable, but most are not very wealthy. There are 33 industrial countries in the world. Thirty-two of them have some form of universal health care. Only one does not. You are living in it. Yet on a per capita basis we pay the highest in the world for health care. $8,000 per man woman and child in this country. 26,000 people die every year because they have no health insurance. Yet when 7 people die because their Takata air bags blow out to hard, and it kills them, Congress spends days trying to draft legislation to see that this will never happen again. What about the 26,000 uninsured that die every year, and the millions who are uninsured still, and yet Congress is desperately trying to kill the recent law that has insured 7 million people. The law only stinks because the insurance companies are involved. Yet their representatives in Congress demanded it be that way. As the people of the United States grow older the need for more and more healthcare providers will grow exponentially. The need by 2025 is an impossible task to accomplish without thousands of NP and PA positions occurring. NP salaries going above $100,000 yearly. Even RN salaries are averaging $67,000 a year. I am so pleased to see so may colleagues speak of NP's with clear and concise praise of their attitudes toward staff and patients. I feel driven to be that to my staff and my patients. I know there are always the exception, but thankfully this is not the rule.

RETIREMENT RETIREMENT RETIREMENT It is a subject everybody seems to forget. Your $30 an hour may seem like real money to you now but it will fade really fast when you become a full adult (I am 71) and realize you are struggling to survive. My own son, a 41 year old doctor was making $170,000 dollars when he came out of his residency. within a year he changed his position and is now 9 years later he is earning over $500,000 a year (almost $300 an hour) He now complains that I never taught him to save his money. I had four kids which I sent through college and on what my wife and I made. We generally went from paycheck to paycheck. Retirement now is from 2 social security checks and a teachers pension. I never got a pension from my hospital endeavors. Now we live but are not wealthy. If you put a small amount away in a fund that pays 8% it will double every 9 years. if you add to that fund, every pay period the progression is phenomenal. Don't be fooled It only takes a small amount to get things started. Add a bit more with each pay raise. and you will be astounded. I met a friend from high school she told a story that her father saved a small amount as a Postmen working for the Post Office. He was a cruel dad, a miserable husband and a curmudgeon. When he died suddenly, they found that he had over $500,000 dollars saved, and put away without the family's knowledge. Thinking his wife would pass away before him, he was saving it for his final days. The Lord works in mysterious ways! So be smart and start a pension fund with a small savings you will maintain every payday.

Be glad you have a contract! I worked for a National company for 8 years. I rose this site's situations to new heights. We were being told by the clients that they were immensely satisfied. The contractor who secured our services was also extremely satisfied. We had a 3 year appraisal of our facility similar to a hospital JCOAH assessment. At the final meeting we were told that this assessment group had been working together making these facility assessments across the country for ten years as the same group. During that period we were found to be the the second best facility they had assessed during that time frame. I had worked my way up from my original base pay to about 20% higher pay in those 8 years. Then a real "GI Jane" came in as the vice president for this state in this organization. Suddenly weeks after her arrival I was told they would no longer need my services. I was stunned. No severance pay. No notice. No repayment for accrued sick leave. Nothing just pick up your stuff and get out. They immediately brought in a new NP at my original base pay. within six weeks she balked at a request to send a 39 year old client to the Hospital as she felt she was about to give birth. The new shift charge nurse was there taking report from the previous charge nurse when the attendant from the infirmary screamed out "She is having a baby in the bed." That was one reason this company had lost a 4.5 million dollar a year contract with another big facility some two years previously. Because they had allowed another birth in that facility. Not to mention a personal law siut for 2.5 million brought by the woman who was not serviced properly. After that our orders were no "baby in the bed" scenarios. I had some significant OB experience many years prior, and was confident that would never happen on my watch. This replacement had a real attitude, and it was not what should have been there. They paid a lot more then they saved from firing me. I did go to an employment lawyer and he heard my case and looked me square in the eye and said without a contract you are toast. So I say to you if you can go to these contract negotiations with a lawyer. Yes! It will cost you about $1,000, and I know you are healer, not a conniver, but you will get so much more out of it then you could ever imagine, including peace of mind. Good Luck!

I do not want to go into a personal history, but I feel my story might give someone some insight into the value of education. My Mom and Dad were the children of immigrants. My Dad had a third grade education, and my Mom completed the sixth grade. Their circumstances were not their choice, but they were who that segment of the population was during those times. My Dad was one slick business man, and a hell of a worker too. He died when I was five, and I never really knew him. My Mom had her own problems which I never understood until I was much older, and better educated. Eventually she had become demented. Yet I knew she was very dependent on me at an early age. I could have gone so many ways. Within two days of my high school graduation I was marching at Lackland Air Force Base. Now my schooling was mostly parochial, and I graduated from a Catholic School for Boys with a college prep program. I was tested out as number three in my senior class, but I never spoke college, and they never asked. Four years of loading nuclear weapons in the Air Force put me no where when I got out pf the military, even though I went through the ranks as fast as you could back then. None of my siblings went to college, and it was just not what I had in mind. I had never been encouraged by my mother to go to school, and my paltry efforts to attend college in the military were not encouraging either. Although I did pass a college GED test which said I had two years of college, as far as the US Air Force was concerned. I worked as a telephone man for two years during which time I married my high school sweetheart, and we were expecting our first child. She however, was a very smart woman and her parents, even though immigrants, had been teachers in their native country, and expected her to go to college. She in turn made me think about it too. Without much from me, she got the ball rolling, and even secured the financial aspects of loans and applying for the GI Bill funding too. Believe me I would be still be hanging from a telephone pole if it wasn't for her efforts. School wasn't my finest hour. I had been undiagnosed with an ADD, and even now I read books on tape. I got through school not because of the University, but in spite of it. I was so unsure of what I wanted to do, and counseling wasn't going to direct me to be a nurse as a male, at that time, that was for sure. With the birth of our second child. I was the first husband in delivery at both facilities we used. That was my wife's doing not mine. I finally got interested in Nurse-Midwifery. That was a real set back as the world was not ready for a male in that profession, and neither was Nurse-Midwifery, nor was the Air Force. Where I had returned as a Nursing Officer, Worked OB for two years. We had a third child in the car on our way to the hospital 85 miles from home. I eventually applied 5 times to Nurse-Midwifry, and was rejected five times. Dropping out of Nursing, I went into being a professional Paramedic. Two of my finest years, although we were on food stamps and WIC Program. My wife became very sick shortly after our fourth child was born, and we returned to Miami for her to pass there, where I might be able to get help from her family raising the four kids, all under 11 years old. She didn't pass, and we are now about to have our 49th wedding anniversary. I was out of school for 23 years before returning for for my Masters. Again it was a horrendous experience, and I graduated in spite of the University, not because of them. I must say all four of our kids have gone to college. That to was almost totally due to my wife's efforts. She secured their funding in very creative ways, and I will say she is now supporting our grandchildren too, sending them to college with very little borrowing and debt to repay. One of our adult kids asked me to read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" a book that poo poos college, and talks about how the author, whose father was a college professor, made his millions in real estate with little or no college. It was an impressive effort to read, but I can attest to the fact that the way out of crippling poverty is education. Oh there might be a select few to get rich through sports or computing, but the tried and true way is almost always education. Don't be fooled by the Sooth-Sayers who promise you the moon, and give you green cheese.

I was in the ER for 20 years. It was a life I would not trade for anything. It was excitement, fear, exhilaration, and satisfaction all rolled into one wonderful experience. I never missed a shift. That is just me, but there was never anything that ever made me want to miss a shift. Many of my colleagues would call in sick, and admit later it was a mental health day for them. I was always surprised at that attitude, but never condemned it. I did some shifts teaching paramedics in other ER facilities. I must admit that I was in a Level 3 Trauma unit. Not to much excitement. More of a neighborhood facility then a level one trauma center. During those brief engagements in those level one Trauma centers I was in awe at the level of stress these facilities exposed their employees too. I might have been burned out much sooner if my twenty years was in that type of a stressful environment. If I remember correctly the County Hospital in Miami at that time, offered like one paid one week off every ten weeks to try and maintain a concurrent staff, as the stress was so high. During my short time teaching paramedics, and watching the chaos that ensued those environments, I might not have been the 100% attendance person I can claim to be today. Yet, the ER was the place for me. At one point I had dropped out of nursing and became a Professional Paramedic myself. Now that was the epitome of my total experiences. I was in professional heaven during those two years. The lights, the siren, the people parting the way to let me see the patient was a real "drug" for me. However, we were on food stamps, and my wife was on the WIC program while she carried our 4th child. That kid is now a captain in the Fire/Rescue service of a large metropolitan area. He is pulling down a larger salary than I ever made, even as a ARNP. He also loves it, and would never want to be anywhere else. When he calls on the phone often we talk about one experience after another. It has made us very very close. The ER was always just what I needed. I cannot tolerate repetition. While a Paramedic the money for me was so bad I sought out a second position as a nurse to supplement my income. I even dropped out of the Paramedic position, and took a free 6 week ICU Nursing course offered by the local hospital. I was number one in my class, but when I went to the actual ICU position, I only lasted 3 days. It was not for me. In the ER at the time I could Treat'em or Street 'em in about 4 hours. That meant that no matter how bad they were, they weren't mine after about 4 hours. I need that kind of rapid turn over. The ER today may be a more long term environment which is one reason I left to become an ARNP. I kind of saw, "The writing on the wall." Taking care of the "poor boy" who was in a coma in the ICU day after day was a real drag on who I was. I found I needed to be challenged constantly, but if it became an insurmountable challenge I needed that patient to be brought upstairs, where someone with those repetitive skills, could better take care of them. I have had so many incredible experiences because of my position in the ER. I could live another whole life and never need another experience to fulfill me. That ER experience served me well when I was in Correctional medicine as an ARNP, and again now as the provider in an indigent clinic. If any of this appeals to you too, welcome to the Emergency Department.

It may appear in the language, but the whole world is changing, and even my grand kids are in a whole different world. These social net works and apps like KIK and Whasup and Facebook, and the list goes on, are bringing communication to new heights, and that does not mean that the higher the better. Bullying is now a digital art. I used to deal with the fact I looked Chinese every day of my middle school years. But today kids are truly suffering from the shear volume of the scathing cuts, and emotional injuries that are being transmitted over these social networks. These newer forms of communication are truly powerful tools. But being powerful means they can be misused as never before, and we as parents and grand parents are almost helpless to see the power these young people posses at the ends of their fingers, when applied with youthful immaturity to the keyboards of today's mobile phones. When I was 14 I was driving. Kids today need to be 17 to drive. Maybe they need to be 17 to have a smart phone? These "smart phones" are not smart in of themselves. They need an adult with a moral sense to use them, and having them in the hands of unsupervised children and young people is a travesty. When I got our first home computer in 1985 the kids began to know more about it then I did in a short time. One went on to get his initial degree in Computer Science, and he is the one who is the tightest with his kids and their smart phones, even taking them away at times. He also checks their conversations and internet histories. The "Smart Phone" is now a computer without a cord. Do you know what your kid is doing with it? I do not envy the parents of today. I don't think my kids would be who they are today if I had to deal with with smart phones too.

When I was a nursing student they brought in a male Director of Nurses. One of his first edicts was to demand nurses begin wearing nursing caps again. I was one of seven male nursing students that year, and although exempt, the female nursing students were required to wear their caps. I was stunned that the cap was considered part of being a good nurse. So all the males went out and bought the Nursing school's cap. Whoever designed these caps was not an engineer. They hardly stayed on a woman's head, let alone a man with short hair. We had researched the cap and found it to be remnant from the time before Nightingale, when prostitutes were the usual nurses as they had seen naked men before, and would not be scandalized doing it as a profession. The main purpose of the cap was to keep the head lice which were very common back then, from dropping onto the patients.Using this prerogative we petitioned the DON to reconsider his edict to return caps to the profession as an form of ID for nurses. It didn't work until it just became another thing that was eventually just not followed as it was just not functional in a modern nursing context. White uniforms are almost as bad. Trying to keep these clean during a hard day in the life of a nurse was always a difficult proposition, and I threw out many a white uniform stained with charcoal in an ED scenario. Specific colors for specific hospital staff doesn't work either as we went to purple in the ED at one time, and I looked like a walking grape. Then we found out that black uniforms showed more then white did at times, beside being depressing, and whole papers have been written about wearing red uniforms in some emotional scenarios. So why can't we just have really big ID badges that says REGISTERED NURSE?

Nurses are so insecure! It is part of why most of us become nurses, probably myself included. A term we used years ago was, "Nurses eat their young." It is all based on insecurity. Most of us are never truly sure of what we are doing at any one time. We have so many "supervisors" other nurses, doctors, even "suits." each has their own agenda and their own view of what we should be doing in their regard. Initially we were the "physician's handmaid." This has set the tone. British nurses, as per Florence Nightingale, "OWN" the patient. The doctor asks her if he can have the patient to preform his professional duties with them. We in America would drop dead if a doctor asked us that. Because of this insecurity in ourselves, and our job, we often "tattle" on our colleagues. often with the passive-aggressive approach that if they are watching her more closely they will watch me less so. Do you think a physician would do that? Those guys go their graves knowing a host of "mistakes" their colleagues make. The nature of the subservience we serve in has made us who we are. It is actually a beautiful exposition of our nature, but it is froth with betrayal and tattle tales, as one other nurse responding here mentioned. I was shocked to read the title of another post which implies that older nurses are unwilling to teach and foster younger nurses. This is a sad part of this noble profession, but an intricate part of who we are as people. As we see with some new nurses coming into the profession, not to serve, but rather to only earn a decent salary. These newer people are not buying into the "handmaid" role. Most nurses are here to serve. Just remember to take care of the caretakers. If we are truly a profession, lets act like professionals. The profession needs to be protected, and nurtured. Policing ourselves is critical. If a nurse is truly unethical, they need to be admonished, if not castigated from the profession. But within our own ranks, as another nurse here has already pointed out, we need to foster an open forum within our ranks, where things can be discussed and worked out within the confines of the profession.

I got my MSN ARNP when I was 55. I was working full time and took 6 hours a semester in a 42 semester hour program. It took me five years to finish, as I did get disgusted and dropped out for a year. ED nursing was getting to hard, and to dangerous. I knew I had to get into something I could stay with as I got older. I have never been so happy in what I do. You will never regret having gone. The hospital paid my tuition, hence the 6 semester hour limit. I am not even sure they are doing anything like that anymore, but it made the whole effort much easier on the purse strings. Go for it Girl...!

I am terribly sorry if my tardiness offends you. I am 70 years old and I have been late for my birth (really Mom took three trips to the hospital before i finally got out.), late for my wedding (really), and hopefully I will be late for my funeral. I used that as a joke to try to fend off the .38 caliber eyes that greeted me as I flew through the door "extremely ready" for my next shift. I was never disciplined in my formative years for arriving in a timely manner. I was brought up by my single mom as my dad died when I was 5 years old. She was always late for everything. We even tried setting the clock ahead 20 minutes just to stimulate getting out on time. I was in the military and was always the last one out of the barracks to get to a formation. What is it in me that makes me that way. I am not sure. It isn't a disrespect, or a slovenly attitude toward who and where I am going too. I will mention that I can say with some authority that part of those feelings are in your personality as well. I mean people can be trained to be punctual, and I would have now appreciated that kind of early training, but it didn't happen, and I have to live my life to the best of my ability. I have four adult children who have become professionals in their own right, and are still frustrated with me, and my tardiness. My wife was a very prim and proper young lady when I dated and married her some 48 years ago. Although she had also become a highly respected professional in her field of endeavor. She has relaxed dramatically over the years, and has become much less judgmental and more understanding. Time is a relative thing, and your intense attention to it, and response to it is exactly that, YOUR problem. Where would we be as a society if we all endeavored to follow your example? Now I will admit you are right. Things are scheduled, and a very important part of organization and function is a punctual start time. Imagine if your food store, drug store, or even your bank kept you waiting while they didn't open on time. Anyone, including myself, would become irritated with this kind of delay, especially if there were other things on our agenda that were planned and timed according to the opening of these facilities. I am aware of whole societies that are not driven by the clock as much as our puritanical roots have made our society run by the clock as much as it is. We may look down on these societies to the south, but I often wonder if they are not as anxious as we are when it comes to time, and is that a bad thing? Festivity is very much a part of their daily environment. I have also been accused of using my tardiness as a passive aggressive way of dealing with the world. I would never deny that, but to be frank, it is not an obvious, well thought out approach to the world. It is frustrating to be racing across town to be somewhere only to be late and delayed in traffic. Had I planned better I might not be in that particular situation, but being early is a bit of irritant for me as well. I am an ENFP on the MBTI scale (16personalities.com). That makes me an Extroverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceptive. I rely on feelings and perception highly in my relationship to the world in general. That makes me a great nurse at times, and supervisors who are more intense and Thinking, Judgmental "members" of the MBTI seem to be so much more involved with time and punctuality. One such supervisor wrote me up in one of my annual assessments as being unreliable. I confronted her and reminded her that for almost 20 years I had never missed a shift in a busy ER regardless of the posting of the scheduled shift. So many other nurses called in repeatedly for "mental Health" days. I had never done so. But I was consistently 5 or 10 minutes late. No one had ever left late because I was a few minutes late. She rescinded that assessment and simply put I was consistently tardy. She eventually admitted she was a Turner's Syndrome baby. A single X female. Some brief research showed that most Turner's syndrome females are of diminished mental capacity. Seems if they get their single x from their Mom they are of seriously low intelligence. Whereas if their X Chromosome comes from their father they are of normal intelligence. However, they inherently lack empathy. She was obviously cast from that mold. So I attributed her initial assessment from her situation which was not her fault. Try to assume some sympathy, and realize we cannot all be as punctual as you are, yet we do serve and function remarkably well as a nurse in most situations. Thank You for your consideration, and I don't hold your intense annoyance against you as you do find that the ones consistently late make up a core of your favorite providers. Diversity has a way of developing your best teams. No one has all the fruit in their bowl.

Death is inevitable, just as are taxes are, said Benjamin Franklin. Yet we as nurses deal with this reality as no one else does. Often Doctors, and other healthcare providers don't deal with the mechanics, and the emotions involved with holding the hand of a dying person whose family may not even be there. I cried with one young patient who died squeezing my hand when his Hodgkin's Disease finally choked him to death weeks after he refused a trach. His Mom bolted from the bedside, unable to see him die. Then His Dad ripped his own hand from his dying son's grip and ran to be with his wife, who was falling apart. Only I was still there watching him choke to death. I grabbed his now empty hand and growled we were all still here with him. He clutched my hand with a real death grip. Then just relaxed as he gave up the ghost. I reassured his parents. Left the room to confront his siblings at the door. Then I found the most private place I could on the ward. In the med room I cried like a baby. I am still tearing up now some 39 years later. Death will almost always be a part of who we are as nurses. Fortunately life is the better part of what we do. Even my time in Obstetrics had its touch of death. There is no easy way of dealing with it. Places particularly touched by death, Burn Units, Oncology, ICU, ER, Hospice, and other areas I might not even be aware of, are often listed with only brief tours of duty compared with other areas of nursing like Primary Care etc. I read somewhere that the Burn Units in particular often see a turn over of nursing personnel in as little as 6 months. The truth being if YOU can't deal with it "get out." Why? Because "burn out" is a serious thing, both physically and emotionally. Getting away from it before you burn out is a healthy thing. Stress has some incredible consequences, including your health and your relationships. Nursing is a jewel of a profession, but your life and your loves are even more important in the scheme of things then your profession. When you are doing something you like or even love you are a truly a happy individual. If you are not happy, move on. One great thing about Nursing is it has so many niches. Trust me, you will find your place. I did Emergency Medical Services and the ER for over 20 years. It was what has made me as happy as I feel about my life. I am not rich, but I am rich in experience I would never give up or take away. As nurses we are often immersed in a co-dependent personality that makes us even seek out this profession. We need to help people to be who we want to be as an adult person. It will probably never make us rich as Finance or Business, but can you imagine yourself in a suit, or God forbid, a tie, day in, and day out. Be what you want to be, but be happy in what you do. Death is a part of life. Someone has to deal with it on a frequent basis. If you can't, no matter, there are other areas where you can be who you want to be as a nurse. However, if you can deal with it, and accept it, know that those who loose a loved one will be so glad you are there to be with them, and you will know so much more about who YOU are as a person and nurse.

So tell me again! The administrator is full so full of it, that you plan to clean out her desk of all the baloney she keeps issuing...